The Art of Questioning

“Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than giving of right answers.” -Josef

Albers (1888-1976)

 Question - any sentence which has an interrogative form or function

Purposes of Questioning

Why do teachers ask questions?

 To interest, engage and challenge the learners

 To find out what pupils know

 To focus on an issue or topic

 To manage and organize pupils’ behavior

 To identify, diagnose difficulties or blocks to learning

 To promote reasoning, problem solving, evaluation and develop critical thinking

skills and inquiring attitudes and reinforce student understanding;

 To assess achievement of instructional goals and objectives

 To stimulate students to pursue knowledge on their own

Principles of Questioning

1. Distribute questions so that all, including non- volunteers, are involved.

2. Balance factual and though-provoking questions.

3. Ask both simple and challenging questions so that the poorer students may participate and

the brighter students may be extended.

4. Encourage lengthy responses and sustained answers.

5. Stimulate critical thinking

6. Use the overhead technique: Question--Pause--Name

 7. Ensure audibility, then refuse to repeat the questions or answers.

8. If a student asks a question, don’t answer it until you’ve asked the class

9. Personalized questions

Kinds of Questions

1. Reflecting -Sentence Prompts - “So you’re thinking that…- “Sounds like you’re

concerned that…” - “You feel…because…”- “I’m hearing that…”- “Let me see if I

understand what you are saying…”

2. Open-ended Questions - Allows other person to express what is on his/her mind, to tell

you what he/she considers to be important - Gives maximum latitude to speak freely

3. Closed-ended Questions - Limit the length of the response to a few words - Call for a

precise piece of information - The short response focuses directly on a specific point

Levels of Questioning

Bloom’s Taxonomy - Cognitive Domain

Knowledge Comprehension Application Analysis Evaluation Synthesis

 Knowledge: requires that the students recognize or recall information

 Comprehension: requires the students to think on low level such that the knowledge can

be reproduced or communicated without a verbatim repetition.

 Application: requires the students to solve or explain a problem by applying what he or

she has learned to other situations and learning tasks.

 Analysis: requires the students to solve a problem through a systematic examination of

facts or information.
  Evaluation: requires the students to make an assessment of good or not so good according

to some standards.

 Synthesis: requires the students to find a solution to a problem through the use of

original, creative thinking.

NOTE:  Low Level Thinking Skills (LOTS) are those in the knowledge and comprehension

level.  High Level Thinking Skills (HOTS) are those that go beyond the comprehension

level.

What are the characteristics of a good question?

A good question should be…..

 Short, thought provoking, properly directed

 Unambiguous, relevant, related to the objectives

 Clearly stated, straight forward, comprehensive, common vocabulary.

Effective Questioning should….

1. Reinforce and promote the learning objectives

2. Include “staging Questions” to draw pupils towards key understanding or to increase the

level of challenge in a lesson as it proceeds.

3. Involve all pupils

4. Engage pupils in thinking for themselves.

5. Promote justification and reasoning.

6. Create an atmosphere of trust where pupils’ opinions and ideas are valued.
 7. Show connections between previous and new learning.

8. Encourage pupils to speculate and hypothesize.

9. Encourage pupils to ask as well as to “receive” questions.

10. Encourage pupils to listen and respond to each other as well as to the teacher.

Pitfalls of Questioning:

1. Asking many questions.

2. Asking questions answerable with a simple yes or no answer.

3. Asking too many short-answer, recall based questions.

4. Asking “bogus,” “What am I thinking” questions.

5. Starting all questions with the same stem

6. Focusing on a small number of pupils and not involving the whole class.

7. Making a sequence of questions too rigid

8. Not giving pupils time to reflect, or to pose their own questions

9. Dealing ineffectively with incorrect answer

10. Asking questions when another strategy might be better.